FIC: Life-Getting 101 (X-Files)
Jan. 5th, 2012 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maybe_amanda101Title: Life-Getting 101
Author: MaybeAmanda (Amanda Wilde)
Email: maybe_underscore_a at rocketmail dot com
Word Count: 1600-ish
Rating: G
Timeline: the week before Christmas, 1993 (between Fire and Beyond the Sea)
Archive: Sure.
More Disclaimed Against than Disclaiming: Chris Carter owns M&S;
Fox owns The X-Files.
Thanks: to Circe, for emergency beta
For: forbiddenxspark. This is more start of friendship that true friendship, but these things have to begin somewhere :D
Summary: When she'd told Ellen not long after Ethan's departure that she had to get herself a life, she meant it. Well, the life-getting officially starts now.
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It's the Friday before Christmas, and Dana Scully has a date. With a man. A man who isn't Daniel or Jack ('Of course I think we should go public with our relationship, Dana, just not right now,') or Rod ('Borrow a kid, Dana, and we'll all go out some weekend and then I won't have to spend so damned much time alone with my obnoxious spoiled brat') and it's sure as hell not Ethan ('Atlanta is where I have to be if I want to make a name for myself, Dana, and you, well, you can be a doctor anywhere, sweetie.')
She's thought about this a lot over the past few weeks, few months, really. She's a qualified FBI field agent. A board certified pathologist. A damned good shot. Twenty-nine years old.
And, god, she's lonely. She's so damned lonely.
Her job is hectic at the moment, maybe a bit too hectic for her to be considering a serious relationship. But as she and Mulder get more used to working together, there will probably be a lot less travel. Things will inevitably settle down some, become less frenetic and more routine. She's not old, exactly, but she's not, as her parents like to remind her, getting any younger, either. And, god, she does not want to be one of those desperate women in her late thirties trying anything and everything to have a baby.
She's ready for a Capital-A Adult Relationship, with all the things that entails - a joint checking account, fighting over closet space, battles over where to spend the holidays, everything. When she'd told Ellen not long after Ethan's departure that she had to get herself a life, she meant it.
Well, the life-getting officially starts now.
They've been doing paperwork all day, year-end stuff, working in what Scully thinks novelists mean when they say 'companionable silence,' with only the occasional rustling of paper, slap of a stapler, or glide of a drawer interrupting it. Tedious work, but it has to be done, and, with the new year just days away, she doesn't want it hanging over her head.
She glances at her watch again.
"Hot date?" Mulder asks.
"Excuse me?"
"You keep checking your watch," he says.
"Oh?" She hates being obvious. "Do I?"
"You do," he says.
"And based on that alone, Agent Mulder, you conclude I have a date."
Mulder's eyebrows rise. "Hardly," he says. "You're wearing a slightly nicer-than-usual-for-the-office and much-nicer-than-usual-for-paperwork blouse today. Your shoes are more dangerously precarious than you normally wear in the office. And you've studiously avoided getting the slightest bit dirty or dusty."
"I see," she says.
"Yes," Mulder says. "Furthermore, Ms. Scully, I put it to you that when you came back from the can like, what, ten minutes ago? you had applied fresh lipstick and more -" he points his index finger at his eye and makes a swirling gesture - "mascara? Eyeliner? Whatever that dark stuff is. As a trained investigator, nay, as a trained profiler, I have come to the conclusion that something is, indeed, up. So, hot date?"
"God, I hope so," she replies.
"Really?" Mulder asks after an eon or two.
Involuntarily, she frowns. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing." Mulder shrugs, and she thinks - hopes - maybe he'll let it drop, but she should know better. "Just, uh, what happened to Evan? Nathan?"
"Ethan," she corrects. "And we came to the conclusion that I was holding him back."
"You were what?"
She swivels in her chair. "He got an offer to go to the network in Atlanta. He took it."
"Oh." Mulder looks like he has about ten questions to ask. He finally settles on, "Recently?"
"A couple of months ago," she says, so no, now that she thinks about it, not that recently. Where had the last half of this year gone?
She never mentioned it, so why would Mulder know? It's not like they share, share share - or at least she doesn't. And she doesn't expect him to keep tabs on her love-life, since she's taken enough angry messages from unhappy women named Debi and Nykki and Jeni when Mulder is away from his desk to know that he can barely keep tabs on his own.
"Oh." He pauses again. "Um, sorry?"
"I'm over it," she says, and it's not a lie. "So over it." Not exactly a lie, anyway.
+=+=+=+=+=+=+
It's her day off, and the only completely free Saturday she'll have before Christmas. She practically got into a knife fight at the mall this morning over a parking spot, her feet are sore from trudging fruitlessly from store to store in what were, clearly, the wrong shoes, and all she wants now is a bubble-bath, some soft music, a glass of wine, and to not think about anything, at all, ever again. Or at least until the water goes cold.
So naturally, while the tub is filling and the bubbles are bubbling, Mulder calls.
She sighs when she sees his name appear on the display. She just does not have the energy to deal with Mulder right now. She should just let it go to voice mail.
She turns off the taps and answers anyway.
She listens to his tale of paperwork-related woe, then assures him that she doesn't have the 426-C expense forms - no Mulder, I am absolutely sure I don't. Why? Because you were the one working on those yesterday, remember, so why would I have them?
"I don't know." She hears the shuffling of papers, the opening and closing of filing cabinet drawers, the general rattling of office items. "They might have ended up in the wrong pile or something. I bet they've fallen into that portable black hole of yours."
"That is a bet you would lose, Agent Mulder."
More office noises, followed by the familiar crack of a sunflower seed. "Would you at least check?"
"Mul-der-"
"Pretty please, Scully."
She knows those forms are not in there, that there is no way they can be in there, but she also knows how annoying Mulder can and will be if sets his mind to it. She grabs her briefcase. "All right, fine."
As much of a neat-freak as she is -- and yes, Mulder, I am, and yes, Mulder, I know it's a coping mechanism, my way of imposing order on the general chaos of a world, and yes, Mulder, I'm a military brat so, yes, I have issues, and for god's sake, Mulder can we please spend the rest of this stake-out talking about something else? -- the truth is, her briefcase is kind of a disaster, hence its 'portable black hole' designation. She has a very bad habit of tossing things in there and hoping they'll just go away or sort themselves out. So far, unfortunately, they've done neither.
The search begins.
"So, how was the date?" Mulder asks.
And there goes her mood, downshifting from bad to worse.
"Fine," she says evenly, glancing at the papers she's pulled from the inside pocket.
"Ouch."
"'Ouch'?"
"'Fine' is not exactly a ringing endorsement, is it?"
Well, no. Mike-the-Systems-Analyst was cute enough, yes, but dull. Duller than dull. And somehow, despite all evidence to the contrary, he imagined himself charming and witty. Charming and witty and about to get laid, actually. Turned out he was wrong on all three counts, and she'd been home watching the Cary Grant/David Niven/Loretta Young version of 'The Bishop's Wife' and eating Chunky Monkey out of the carton before ten-thirty.
"No, it most certainly is not."
"So you're not gonna see him again?"
The snort is involuntary. "Um, no."
"Oh hey, I'm sorry, Scully," he says. "Ta-da, here they are. You were right."
"Told you so." She snaps her briefcase shut and smirks with satisfaction even though there's no one there to see. "And say that part again."
"Which part?"
"The part about me being right."
"Ha. Not going to happen," he says. She hears the rustle of pages being fanned. "Oh, crap. You haven't signed any of these."
"I am spending the evening with my dear friend, the television," she says. "They'll keep until Monday."
"Yeah, only no, they won't. They're kind of late already."
"Mul-der -"
"Hey, tell you what," he says, "my plans for the evening imploded and I have to come out your way, anyway, and I'm starving. How about I pick up some food, we can eat, you can sign, and we will absolutely not think about 426-C's until next December at the very earliest."
She wasn't hungry until he mentioned food. But - no no no, she thinks. She just wants to soak in the tub and think about how much she hates Ellen for setting her up with another dud. But she doesn't say that. She doesn't say anything.
"I'll stop at The Yellow Dragon, okay?" he says. "That place I took you to by the museum that time we were supposed to meet that guy on that case?"
Oh. "With the great hot-and-sour soup?"
"Yeah, that one. And the - you liked the Seven Cities Chicken, too, right?"
Mulder remembers the oddest things, because yes, she had liked the Seven Cities Chicken. Very much. Mulder had told her she'd love it, and she had.
"Isn't that kind of out of your way, Mulder?"
"Nah, and I'm jonesing for their Hunan Beef, anyway."
Oh. Yeah. The Hunan Beef was good, too.
"Your treat?"
"Of course. Whaddaya say?"
"Well -"
Her stomach rumbles. So, great, now she's ravenous. She hopes she's not about to set a very bad precedent, here. She sees enough of Mulder during working hours. The last thing she wants is him thinking she's a pushover, that he can impose whenever it's convenient, take over her after-office hours and weekends, too. She's made that mistake before and there's no way she's going to make it again.
She sighs, hoping she sounds put-upon, that she's conveying just the right amount of 'I'm doing you a favour here, buddy; be grateful.' "Fine."
"Good. I'll call in now," he says. "It'll take about, what, an hour, hour and a half?"
The tub will still be there tomorrow, she thinks. So will the wine.
Well, maybe not the wine.
Mulder is thoughtless sometimes, infuriating at others, but he has an endless supply of wildly entertaining stories and he knows where all the best take-out places are. Excellent qualities in a colleague. In a friend, too.
What the hell, she decides. A girl's gotta eat. There are certainly worse ways to spend the Saturday evening before Christmas. "Sounds good."
"See you then," he says, and hangs up without another word.
She pulls the stopper out of the drain, watches the water and the bubbles and her evening on her own swirl away.
Oh well. Maybe she can get that life next year.
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no subject
Date: 2012-01-05 07:03 pm (UTC)snort!! Oh Scully, dream on!!!
You know, its AGES since I last read an XF fic, it's been one of my first fandoms (aside ST VOY). But it never gets old... Not with authors who still write such good, in character stories with new angles and glimpses in the MS relationship.
Like it very much, THANK YOU for sharing!!!
no subject
Date: 2012-01-05 07:21 pm (UTC)XF was my first online fandom, too, and writing XF fic still feels like home.
And yes, poor Scully. I bet at one time she thought she'd have a nice, normal, alien-free existence. Silly girl ;)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-06 01:32 am (UTC)Sigh. Sometimes I wish I'd just stopped watching in first season, you know?
no subject
Date: 2012-01-06 04:35 am (UTC)Thanks. Yeah. She should enjoy it while she can.
Sigh. Sometimes I wish I'd just stopped watching in first season, you know?
ABSOLUTELY NOT! Think of all the fun you'd have missed. ;)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-06 07:48 am (UTC)Oh, adorable, naive, innocent Scully!
I absolutely LOVED this, and what a great Christmas gift! This is exactly why I love S1!Mulder/Scully. They are just so innocent, and can't even see all the bad crap coming their way. It's so refreshing to have such calm fluff with them (as much as I LOVE the angst and beautiful epicness that they become).
You're such a great writer! Thank you!!!
no subject
Date: 2012-01-06 12:51 pm (UTC)Oh I know! The worse her life got, the better her wardrobe got. Or maybe that was the other way around. ;)
I absolutely LOVED this, and what a great Christmas gift!
Thanks! Again I apologize for it being so late.
This is exactly why I love S1!Mulder/Scully. They are just so innocent, and can't even see all the bad crap coming their way. It's so refreshing to have such calm fluff with them (as much as I LOVE the angst and beautiful epicness that they become).
Again, thanks. Hope you had great holidays!
"Life-Getting 101" by MaybeAmanda #XFiles fanfic rated G
Date: 2012-01-06 08:29 pm (UTC)LOL way to use your powers for evil, Mulder.
"Oh hey, I'm sorry, Scully," he says. "Ta-da, here they are. You were right."
"Told you so." She snaps her briefcase shut and smirks with satisfaction...
Scully, Scully, Scully. You got played so hard. AND SHE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW IT
gah I gotta buy the series on DVD & do a re-watch! Thanks for writing the first XF story I've read in years.
Re: "Life-Getting 101" by MaybeAmanda #XFiles fanfic rated G
Date: 2012-01-06 08:52 pm (UTC)Yeah, but we do ;)
Thanks for the comment!
no subject
Date: 2012-01-07 08:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-08 01:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-08 02:06 am (UTC)I love everything about it, but possibly this the most:
She hopes she's not about to set a very bad precedent, here. She sees enough of Mulder during working hours. The last thing she wants is him thinking she's a pushover, that he can impose whenever it's convenient, take over her after-office hours and weekends, too. She's made that mistake before and there's no way she's going to make it again.
I hope you remember this in say, a year or so, Scully.
And this too:
Mulder is thoughtless sometimes, infuriating at others, but he has an endless supply of wildly entertaining stories and he knows where all the best take-out places are. Excellent qualities in a colleague. In a friend, too.
But remember this, too.
Worth repeating: Love, love, love this.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-08 02:47 am (UTC)And yes, poor, hopeful naive Scully. She just has no idea what's going to hit her.
Thanks for the comment. I'm so glad you enjoyed the story :D
no subject
Date: 2012-01-08 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-08 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-10 12:20 am (UTC)Speaking of napkins, we should go for coffee/lunch some weekend soon.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-10 01:34 am (UTC)You tried. I ripped some pages out of my teeny tiny notebook.
Speaking of napkins, we should go for coffee/lunch some weekend soon.
Yes we should. Let's.
Feeling so nostalgic!,
Date: 2012-01-08 07:14 pm (UTC)Re: Feeling so nostalgic!,
Date: 2012-01-08 10:13 pm (UTC)Me too, a little. Maybe a lot. As MaraKara says, it all goes back to the Xfiles.
Thanks for commenting. I appreciate it so much!
no subject
Date: 2012-01-09 06:36 am (UTC)Ahahahaha. This is just so perfect, because it could have been written at the time the ep originally aired and still be just as prophetic. And oh how I love Scully's admission that she's lonely and on the make for a capital-R Relationship. Poor, silly thing has no idea...
no subject
Date: 2012-01-09 04:23 pm (UTC)Thanks for the comment :D